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Loving the god of the
Mountain as the best thing for Psyche
A very good question on one of the previous parts of my commentary on Till We Have Faces obliged a fairly involved answer. I thought that the reflections that this question stimulated were important enough for a proper reading of this book that it was necessary for me to add another part to my commentary on this great book. Thus, here is part 6: A Necessary Post Scriptum. For Part 1, click here. For Part 2, click here. For Part 3, click here. For Part 4, click here. For Part 5, click here.
There is one last observation
that we must make before we complete our analysis of this great book. C. S.
Lewis writes Till We Have Faces in
such a way that we, the reader, not only sympathize with Orual, but we almost
see ourselves in her place, and agree with her frustration and anger. Orual has
been slighted, and we feel her pain and anger! We suggested, however, that her
feeling of injustice was itself due to a selfish and all-consuming…

The Argument from Joy/Desire
This is part 5, and the last part, of a blog series on C. S. Lewis's, Till We Have Faces. For Part 1, click here. For Part 2, click here. For Part 3, click here. For Part 4, click here.

Psyche has
been promised to the priest of Ungit as a sacrifice, and Orual is no longer
allowed to see her. Bardia, however, allows her one last opportunity to speak
with Psyche. At the end of the conversation, Psyche explains to Orual that, “I
have always—at least, ever since I can remember—had a kind of longing for
death.”[1]
This notion of longing appears in almost everything that C. S. Lewis writes,
even in the poems that he wrote as a young atheist.[2]
This longing is not due to being unhappy, and desiring happiness, states Psyche,
but, rather, was almost like a side-effect of being in a state of great euphoria,
which state was brought on by being surrounded by nature. “And because it was
so beautiful,” says Psyche, “it set me longing, always l…

The Hiddenness of God
and the Appearance of Injustice
This is part 4 of a blog series on C. S. Lewis's Till We Have Faces. For Part 1, click here. For Part 2, click here. For Part 3, click here. The main
theme of this book, or, at least, the explicitly stated purpose of this myth,
is the injustice of the gods. Lewis had already published, in 1940, his
well-known work on the problem of evil, The
Problem of Pain. Though Lewis, when he wrote The Problem of Pain, claims that he had not had a difficult life,
it is to be noted that he had lost his mother as a young boy—and event which
had affected him greatly, and had served in the second World War, losing many
friends. It is interesting to note that this book was published in 1956, the
same year that Lewis was married to Joy Davidman in a civil ceremony (April)
and later in a religious ceremony (December), after having learned that Joy was
diagnosed with Cancer (October). The years preceding 1956 were very busy, as
Lewis fo…